HELP THE ELK: Comment to the Park Service by Wed. June 5th, 2024
Tell the National Park Service (NPS) that you support their own “preferred Alternative B” which would dismantle the 8-foot-tall, 3-mile-long fence of the Tule Elk Reserve at Tomales Point at Point Reyes National Seashore.
While technically this is NOT a vote, or a popularity contest, it IS a way for the public to communicate to the NPS its overwhelming preference for dismantling the elk fence AND for removing the ecologically destructive private cattle businesses (which is what the park’s founders envisioned way back in 1962; a national park for wildlife, not livestock).
The cattle industry is politically powerful. It also has a giant public relations machine that pollutes the public’s mind as effectively as its operations pollute the park. That P.R. machine sells a false narrative about “small” “family” “farms” that create jobs and contributes to the economy — despite most of this being misleading or an outright lie. READ MORE
The harsh reality of the beef and dairy operations at Point Reyes is that they are responsible for indirectly killing hundreds of wild animals at Point Reyes, and not just elk. And poisoning countless more animals from cattle manure pollution of land, water (streams, lagoons, bays) and the atmosphere.
Read the information below and choose what appeals to you to tell the Park Service. While the NPS is asking only for Public Comments about their so-called Tomales Point Plan for the elk, we activists use every opportunity to enter our preferences into what is a federal public record. Because the conflicts and damages that cattle operations do inside this relatively small SF Bay Area national park unit are just a microcosm of the massive damages the cattle industry does to literally millions more acres of America’s public land.
READ MORE about the open dirty secrets of the cattle industry.
MORE INFO to WRITE the National Park Service:
1) I support the National Park Service’s preferred Alternative B in the Tomales Point Area Plan and its Environmental Assessment, to remove the 8-foot-tall fence of the Tomales Point Tule Elk Reserve at Point Reyes National Seashore. Yes, please release this largest of the park’s 3 herds of Tule elk from their fenced confinement.
2) a. Fences do not belong in Point Reyes or in any other national park unit. Fences alter animal behavior, sometimes subtly, sometime fatally. Fences can affect the natural migrations, foraging and mating of wildlife. Fences can cut or otherwise injure — and even kill — animals who attempt to cross between them or jump over them.
b. An additional 300 miles of barbed and straight wire fences should also be removed; they do not belong in this national park, or any other. Many of them, including recently installed fences are not even wildlife friendly. All cattle fences should be removed.
c. In addition all the cattle fences restrict the public’s access to 28,000 acres of Point Reyes — which is 1/3rd the entire park — have been fenced off for these private businesses which have no place in a national park.
2) Please officially rescind the current NPS regulation in the Point Reyes General Management Plan which allows shooting elk to death in the other two herds as population control measures. Because with the Reserve fence gone, the park’s three herds may intermingle, as they should for herd health. I oppose ALL lethal “management” of ANY wild animals at Point Reyes.
3) The NPS’ Environmental Assessment for Tomales Point (viewable HERE) recommends removing the current water tanks and troughs (aka, supplemental water) from the Reserve — but this action should be delayed for at least two years from the date of the fence removal. Drought conditions may return and more elk might die of thirst, especially in the northernmost herds at Tomales Point, so supplemental water may be needed again. It is both efficient and economical to leave the tanks and troughs in place should the need arise to refill them. Over a few years time, they can be removed, once all the Reserve’s elk have learned they can now, with the fence removed, move naturally to additional water sources in times of drought
4) The park’s Tule elk cannot be free, healthy, and safe until all the private cattle operations are removed. Cattle operations expose elk to numerous hazards, including massive amounts of fecal bacteria from cattle which contaminate the soil, streams, and ponds. Manure-borne cattle diseases, including Johne’s disease, infect many of the cattle on the park’s ranches and can infect elk.
5) The NPS itself cites a 1979 study that found half of the park’s dairy ranches were infected with Johne’s disease. Cows-for-profit are the source of the disease problem, not wild elk. Ranchers often blame the park’s elk for infecting their cows with Johne’s, a “wasting” disease, despite their thousands of cows, crowded together, being the breeding ground for this and other ungulate diseases, which are common in cattle operations.
The park’s private cattle have infected the park’s wild elk, not the other way around. Ranchers then blame the victimized elk, when it is their filthy, crowded businesses (which exploit cows too) that are responsible for bringing Johne’s disease to the Point Reyes peninsula — and infecting the Tule elk herds — in the first place.
6) I visit Point Reyes often [or only occasionally] and I come to enjoy the wildlife, not the private cattle operations which degrade the land, pollute the water, harm and kill wildlife. Cattle businesses are brutal on cows, are eyesores in the park, and have no business being here in a national park.
7) Thank you, National Park Service for considering my, and the public’s comments on this very important issue. [Etc. Be polite and respectful for maximum impact with the government and the public which will have access to a record of these Public Comments.]
Submit your COMMENT on the In Defense of Animals website HERE: https://www.idausa.org/campaign/wild-animals-and-habitats/tule-elk/latest-news/national-park-service-public-comment-tule-elk-reserve-fence-point-reyes-national-seashore/
Comment deadline: 10:59pm PT, Wed., June 5th, 2024.
• VIEW the National Park Service’s “Tomales Point Area Plan” (TPAP) and Environmental Assessment (EA): HERE
• GO TO TreeSpirit’s Tule Elk PAGE.
Submit your COMMENT on the NPS webform, HERE: https://parkplanning.nps.gov/commentForm.cfm?documentID=136861
Comment deadline: 10:59pm PT, Wed., June 5th, 2024.